William Cullen Bryant1794-1878

Biography

Bryant first wrote this poem when he was about 17, after reading the British "graveyard poets." The British "graveyard poets" are Romantic writers who wrote poems about the meaning of death. His inspiration came from poets and poems like Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," Robert Blair's "The Grave," and William Wordsworth's "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal."

Discussion Questions:

1. How does Bryant's view of Nature and death compare with your own?2. Do you think Bryant's view of death is because of his youth? Do you think he would have a different view if he wrote the poem at 67 instead of at 17?

Notebook Composition

Composition: Writing About a Reunion (p. 132) In "Thanatopsis" Bryant speaks of death as a grand reunion with all those who have died at an earlier time. Imagine that you are about to enter the afterlife. Write a composition of three or four paragraphs for a friend telling what people -friends, relatives, historical figures- you would be mot interested in getting together with. What questions would you ask? What mysteries would you seek answers to?

Thanatopsis"

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And gentle sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;-- Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around-- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,-- Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist Thy image. Earth, that hourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolv'd to earth again; And, lost each human trace, surrend'ring up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to th' insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thy eternal resting place Shalt thou retire alone--nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down , With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good, Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre.--The hills Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,--the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The vernal woods--rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and pour'd round all, Old ocean's grey and melancholy waste,-- Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings Of morning--and the Barcan desert pierce, Or lost thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregan, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings--yet--the dead are there, And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.-- So shalt thou rest--and what if thou shalt fall Unnoticed by the living--and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh, When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come, And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men, The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, The bow'd with age, the infant in the smiles And beauty of its innocent age cut off,-- Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those, who in their turn shall follow them. So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, that moves To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but sustain'd and sooth'd By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 1814

A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force; She neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees.

Bryant enlarged "Thanatopsis" in 1821, 7 years later, adding the final injunction and giving the poem a kind of religious point.

Analysis of "Thanatopsis"

The word thanatopsis means "thoughts about death' and this poem sees Nature as a soothing and healing force. Bryant Encourages us to live our lives in a way that enables us to enjoy and understand nature. Because of this relationship with nature, death will not be feared, nor will it come as a surprise (ll. 73-81).

Bryant and Romanticism: "Thanatopsis," Bryant's meditation on death, is a Romantic vision of nature, as it reflects the human spirit and provides a key to the understanding of human nature. Briefly, some concepts of Romanticism that are reflected in Bryant's poetry are: - An awareness that the physical world is subject to decline and decay - The belief that while every thing changes and dies, God, the Absolute, remains immortal - The belief that the natural wold provides a key to the human world - that humanity is fulfilled through the life cycle of birth, growth, decay, and death. The message in "Thanatopsis" then, is unmistakeably Romantic: To those who seek "communion" with her, nature speaks in "a still voice," providing a "healing sympathy." Bryant's theme of death in "Thanatopsis" is eminently Romantic, since death is the ultimate restriction on the individual. Only when death is seen as one step in the natural process of renewal, can one accept the final fate of mixing forever with the "sluggish clod." Like other Romantics, Bryant emphasized the ancient past as a form of establishing continuity with the present. Thus, in death, the individual joins the "long train/Of ages," the "innumerable caravan which moves/To the mysterious realm." Stylistically, Bryant also borrowed from the poets of the Romantic Movement. He cast his verse in the dignified un-rhymed meter of blank verse and used lofty diction and inverted syntax to convey his ideas. Like other Romantic poets, Bryant was fond of using archaic words such as thou, thy, shalt, couldst, and list (for listen) to convey a serious, philosophical tone. Another stylistic technique that appears frequently in his poetry is inversion or anastrophe - the displacement of a word, phrase, or clause from its moral position in a sentence, either for emphasis or poetic effect. Frequently inversion enables a poet to maintain meter and or rhyme. Through all these devices, Bryant presents a view of death that is neither morbid nor sentimental. "Thanatopsis," in its structure and philosophy, is perhaps the most characteristic embodiment of emerging Romantic literature in the National Period.